Brown Baggers book club met on Thursday, August 17 to discuss Horse by Geraldine Brooks. With a mind-boggling depth of research, Brooks used fictional characters to bring this story of an enslaved groom named Jarret, a gallery owner named Martha, and contemporary professionals studying the historic horse, Lexington, truly to life. We learned so much about horse racing and breeding, as well as the process of articulating skeletons. Our readers, in the spirit of lifelong learning, even suggested a field trip to the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Kentucky, where Lexington’s bones now remain.
The essence of this novel seems to be exploring figuratively and literally how we are put together, as individuals and as a collective society. Bouncing along three storylines in three different time periods (1850, 1954, 2019), Brooks tackles “art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism,” and also explores the putting-together of our history – a cultural story crafted and constructed not unlike a work of art.
If you’ve read People of the Book, you’ll find many similarities in Horse. Both novels feature a similar back-and-forth timeline structure and a character(s) with a niche profession/obsession/passion so contagious, readers will surely catch it (archives in People of the Book, art and skeleton science in Horse). With Horse, readers were torn on the structure. Most agreed they wanted to stay exclusively with Jarret, the enslaved man from the 1850s. Martha’s story, from the mid-1950s, “annoyed” some readers. Jess, one of the contemporary characters, “grew” on readers. We did conclude that the time jumps provided value. With Martha, there is proof that our stories have a before and an after (some also enjoyed the ability to add a multimedia element to their reading by going to Wikipedia and viewing the actual real paintings of equestrian art). With Jess and Theo, we see the complexity of racism through time, the unsettling ways racism continues to echo, seemingly in perpetuity. As one reader noted, “human beings are still human beings.” And while we won’t reveal spoilers here, there were parallels Brooks could draw between Jarret and Theo; for example, parallels in their relationship with women (especially white women).
Because we were most interested in Jarret, we spent the most time talking about his character. For example, we drew parallels between how he was treated, and how the horse he managed, Lexington, was treated. While it was so dehumanizing to be treated no better than an animal, it was undeniable that Jarret benefitted from his position as groom. But Brooks, never shying away from complexity, included a key plot point of Jarret temporarily being sent to join the field hands. Seeing what could have been, Jarret is made keenly aware of his “good position” and the suffering of others. Still, “even as his world contracted and pressed in upon him [in the fields], in equal measure his heart expanded.” Right or wrong, his time being whipped in the fields is framed as a blessing.
Just like Year of Wonders is seeing renewed interest from readers thanks to contemporary events, Horse is timely. This year it was hard to escape news headlines such as this during the Triple Crown as dozens of horses died in training and racing. To learn more about Brooks’ own attachment to horses, and to read about her writing process, decision-making, and personal journey, see here and here.
See also:
https://www.si.edu/stories/racehorses-bones-return-lexington
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/portrait-lexington-22093
Other titles to explore:
War Horse (film)
The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
Lexington by Kim Wickens
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
The Promise by Damon Galgut
Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
Upcoming titles:
September 21 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
October 19 – Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
November 16 – Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell